Roman helmets: Imperial Gallic/Italic and Ridge - comparisons and sources

[Nathan Ross]

with a technical explanation, not with soft arguments which are always relative and can not compete with a technical explanation.

As I think we agreed somewhere above, the only way to judge the relative merits of different helmet types would be to test accurate replicas, probably to destruction.

Your 'technical explanation' is not, I would say, objective but based solely on opinion and assumption. So is mine. But why do we need a 'technical explanation' anyway?

Do we have any evidence that the late Roman state needed to produce cheap equipment? Do we have any evidence that anyone at the time considered late Roman arms to be inferior to earlier models? Do we have any evidence that late Roman equipment failed in the the field or that late Roman soldiers or commanders longed for earlier types of arms and armour? Do we have any evidence that the eastern Roman state, which survived for many centuries after the west, changed to a different type of armament production?

We have no evidence for any of this. Ideas that later Roman arms and armour must have been crude or cheap or poor quality are based solely on modern prejudice.

Therefore, there is no 'problem' that needs to be explained, and therefore no need for a 'technical explanation'. Historical analysis must proceed from evidence, not vice versa.